


Under Fluorescent Lights

by starsandgraces



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: AU, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-14
Updated: 2010-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:05:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgraces/pseuds/starsandgraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day AU. The first time Len meets Jim Kirk, there's a bullet hole in his shoulder and a shit-eating grin on his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Fluorescent Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Written at [inell](http://inell.livejournal.com/)'s request for [help_haiti](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/). Huge thanks go to [withthepilot](http://withthepilot.livejournal.com/) for the super-fast beta and [moonlitelupines](http://moonlitelupines.livejournal.com/) for putting up with my increasingly frantic questions about how things work in America. I am not American, nor am I a doctor, so I apologise for any mistakes that may have slipped through.

The first time Len meets Jim Kirk, there's a bullet hole in his shoulder and a shit-eating grin on his face. It doesn't take him long to learn that neither is unusual for Jim.

It's not exactly a serious wound—just clipped the outside of the deltoid—and while it's bled plenty, judging by the bloodstains on Jim's arm, it's not going to kill him. Len probes around the edges with his fingertips, checking for any damage not obvious at first glance, but it looks as if Jim's in the clear.

"Nurse Chapel," he says, "can your student stitch up a wound yet? If he can't, show him."

Christine nods and sticks her head out of the door. "Nurse Chekov," she calls. "In here, please."

Len doesn't really know how he feels about Pavel. He's a hard worker, but he's worryingly enthusiastic about the most menial of tasks. If he hadn't seen the kid lose his temper at one of the gurneys with a bum wheel one evening, Len wouldn't believe he wasn't some kind of android planted by hospital management to increase productivity and creep everyone out.

He comes into the curtained-off area and stands at the head of the bed with Christine, watching closely as she preps the wound for suturing. Len continues his examination of Jim as she does so.

In addition to the gunshot wound, Jim has dislocated his thumb and broken one of his fingers. It's a rookie mistake, and not one he'd expect from someone like Jim. Of course, he's only just _met_ Jim, but he makes a strong impression.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you not to punch someone with your thumb tucked inside your fist?" Len asks. He lifts Jim's hand up and touches his thumb carefully. It's warm, thank god. "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah, but it's kind of painful. I was a little distracted at the time," Jim says with a shrug. "The guy had just shot me, after all."

"You mean he didn't get away?"

Jim's partner, a serious-looking Asian man, speaks up for the first time since Len came in. "Kirk just kept coming at the guy like he was the Terminator or something. It scared the suspect so much he didn't even try to run."

Pavel lets out a small chuckle before composing himself again, staring down at Jim's shoulder as Christine neatly ties off another stitch.

"Well, try not to get so carried away next time. Once the nurse is done with you, I want to get that hand of yours x-rayed so we can relocate your thumb and set that finger."

"How _exciting_ ," Jim says brightly.

"Enjoy your morphine, Detective Kirk," Len replies, shaking his head slightly. "I'll see you when you get back." He strips off his soiled gloves and drops them into the biohazard bin, heading out of the room. Jim's partner follows him.

"Hey," he says. "Just so you know. That's not the morphine, that's just how Kirk is."

"Good to know," Len says. He holds out his hand. "Detective...?"

"Sulu. Hikaru Sulu," Hikaru answers, reaching across to shake Len's hand. "You're fairly new here, right?

Len nods. "I moved here a couple months back."

"Well, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of each other from now on. Kirk is a little unorthodox, I guess you'd say. Or accident-prone."

"Oh, good."

***

It turns out Hikaru was right. Sometimes he and Jim are there because they've got an injured criminal in custody, but it's not uncommon for Jim to have a little something for Len to take a look at. Len's never seen Hikaru with more than the odd scrape or bruise, so he can only assume that Jim has a death wish. The only thing he has going for him is an overactive immune system and an apparently limitless ability to heal faster than any patient Len's ever treated, though he still thinks Jim might have taken one too many blows to the head over the years.

He hasn't seen Jim for almost a week when he pops up in front of Len in the middle of the department, trademark smirk firmly in place. "Doctor McCoy, fancy seeing you here."

"What is it today?" Len asks tiredly. He's been on shift for what feels like the better part of a week and he really isn't in the mood. "Another concussion?"

"I have this really bad paper cut," he says, and he holds up a finger.

"Do you even know what 'ER' stands for?"

"Elephant rota," Jim replies promptly.

Slowly and deliberately, Len turns his back on Jim and picks up a chart. He desperately needs some coffee—or twelve hours of sleep—and he can't focus on it as much as he'd like to, but diverting his attention away from Jim seems to be enough to get him to calm down.

"I was kidding, okay? It was just a stupid game I used to play with my brother when we were kids," he says, trying to take the chart out of Len's hands. "I'm not hurt; I'm here with Sulu. Who also isn't hurt. He has a personal errand."

"He often run errands in the hospital at whatever the hell o'clock it is?" Len tugs the chart back and puts it down on the counter. "That's confidential."

"I'm not going to look. And I'm not his mother, so I couldn't tell you."

"But you had to come along while he does this errand?"

Jim rolls his eyes theatrically and runs a hand through his hair. "He drives. So now I have to kill time while he flirts with your nurses or whatever."

"Is that what he's doing?" Len asks, rubbing at one of his eyes. He leans against the edge of the counter, stifling a yawn, and tries not to look at Jim's hair. It's a little shorter than the last time he saw Jim; he must have had it cut recently.

"Maybe. But it's okay, because it means I get to spend time with my favourite doctor."

"Jim, I know you expect me to be flattered but I'm honestly quite disturbed that you see that many doctors with enough regularity to have a favourite."

"You enjoy spoiling my fun, don't you?" Jim asks, but he doesn't seem particularly displeased.

"Probably. Look, Jim, if you're going to stick around, can you at least go and get me some black coffee? I'm dead on my feet here and I don't mind talking to you, but I still have four more hours of my shift to get through."

"Understood," he replies with an obnoxious salute.

Len goes to check on one of his patients and when he gets back, Jim's gone again. It'd be like he was never there at all if there wasn't a cup of coffee—and not even hospital coffee; something from the Starbucks around the corner—and a sandwich sitting by the computer at the nurses' station. There's a napkin propped in front of the snack with his name scrawled across it.

***

Something went wrong. The first Len knows about it is when Jim comes barrelling down the corridor, wild-eyed and followed closely by Hikaru and two of the department's security guards.

"I got him," Len calls, stepping in front of Jim and spreading his arms wide. He kind of assumes that'll be enough to slow Jim down—if not stop him completely—but Jim doesn't even flinch; he just ploughs straight into Len, which _hurts_. Luckily, Len's a fairly solid person himself, and he manages to stay on his feet, even if he does feel a bit winded. "Jesus, Jim, what's the matter?"

"Let me go," Jim growls, struggling in Len's arms.

"You can't go in there," he says firmly. He ducks as Jim's elbow flies past his ear, quite obviously meant to hurt him enough to distract him from holding onto Jim.

Both of the guards and Sulu take an involuntary step towards them, and Len manages to wave one hand at them without losing his grip.

"I've got him," he assures them, as Jim struggles even more wildly.

"I have to get _through_!"

Christine darts in behind Len and, with the cool professionalism that Len has come to expect from her, neatly slaps Jim across the face. Everyone falls completely silent and Jim gasps, looking for a moment as if he might hit her back before he slumps against Len's chest, his hands dropping uselessly to his sides.

Len almost loves Christine in that moment.

"Uh, I think that might count as assault of a police officer," Sulu says. He eyes her warily, as if he expects Christine to slap him as well.

"I'm a nurse and I was administering a very effective treatment for hysterics," she says. She shakes her hand slightly, then tucks it beneath her other arm. "Don't worry. His insurance covers it."

"I can take it from here, everyone," Len says, manoeuvring Jim into a more comfortable position for both of them. "Thank you, Nurse Chapel. Find some ice for your hand and get back to work."

"Yes, Doctor," Christine replies, still clutching her hand to her side.

"Come on, Jim," he says quietly. "We're going to go and get some coffee, okay?" Len thinks he sees Jim's mouth moving, but he doesn't hear a reply.

He leads Jim through the ER to the on-call room, which is—thankfully—unoccupied. There's a coffeemaker in there now, newly installed, and the coffee it brews is just barely better than anything else you can get in the hospital. Jim seems to have regained the ability to walk by himself, and he goes over to sit on the bottom bunk while Len pours them each a plastic cup full of coffee.

"I'm sorry," he says when Len hands him a cup.

Len sits down beside him. "What happened?"

"It was just meant to be a drug bust. It was meant to be simple, you know? We've done it dozens of times." Jim sighs heavily and drinks deeply from his coffee. His nose wrinkles very slightly, but to his credit, he doesn't say anything about the taste. "We knew the guy was a scumbag. We knew he was selling to kids. We knew he was beating his girlfriend. But nobody— _fuck_." His voice breaks and he looks away, his hands trembling.

"Nobody what?" Len asks gently. He rests his hand lightly on Jim's shoulder—the one that holds the scar from the first night they met.

"Nobody knew his girlfriend had a kid. Beth. Bethie. He was hitting her too, I guess, or something worse. When we went in, he grabbed the girl. Held a knife up to her throat. Her mom tried to get her away from the fucker, and he slit her throat right in front of Bethie. He... then he stabbed Bethie, too."

"Oh, goddammit. Fuck," Len says, squeezing his eyes shut briefly. "What happened to the dealer?"

"I shot him." Jim's eyes are red-rimmed, but they're filled with steely determination. "I shot him, and hell, Len, I only wish I'd done it sooner. Then maybe Bethie wouldn't have seen her mom die. That was my fault. So I promised her I wouldn't leave her." He sniffs and finishes his coffee, tossing the cup into the trash. "But they wouldn't let me in the ambulance with her and then you stopped me from going into the exam room."

"Jim, you know those areas are authorised personnel only. And they were trying to stabilise her; you'd just have been in the way."

"She needed me," Jim says fiercely. "I made a promise to her and I let her down."

Something clicks in Len's mind. "Jim, what happened?" he asks again.

"I just told you—"

"No," Len says. "What happened to _you_? This girl—what happened to her isn't your fault. You did your job as best as you could, and nobody can save everyone. So what makes you think you should be able to? What are you trying to make up for?"

"Fuck you, it wasn't me," he says. "My brother. I don't want you to fucking psychoanalyse me, okay? I don't want to talk about it."

They stare at each other for a long moment, eyes locked together. Jim's face is very close to his; so close that Len can feel the heat from his uneven breathing against his cheek.

"Okay," Len replies eventually.

Neither one of them moves at all, then Jim tilts his head slightly and leans even closer, his eyes more intensely blue than Len's ever seen them before. His lips part of their own accord, ready for the kiss that he's completely sure he wants more than anything.

The handle of the door rattles suddenly and they jump apart as if they've been electrified. Jim's actually up on his feet and looking like he's been there all along as an intern whose name Len can't remember comes into the on-call room, yawning.

"Oh!" she says. "I'm sorry, Doctor McCoy, I didn't know you were here."

"Detective Kirk and I were just discussing a case," he snaps, a little more harshly than he probably should have. "I'll be taking him to see a patient now."

Len stalks out of the room with Jim strolling along behind him, hands in his pockets.   
"Well, I don't think she suspected anything," Jim remarks.

"What's her surname? The kid?" Len asks, keen to change the subject.

"I don't know it," he says after a long pause, stopping dead in the middle of the corridor. "Jesus, I don't even know her name."

"She's probably upstairs by now, but we can find her anyway." He stops as well and rests his hand lightly on Jim's shoulder, squeezing carefully. "It might be a little more difficult without her full name, but we'll find her."

"Thank you," Jim says quietly.

After a moment, they start walking again. Len doesn't bother to drop his hand.

***

Jim is wearing a fedora that doesn't suit him at all, and Len really doesn't know what he's supposed to make of it. He suspects it's related to the fact that Jim is particularly drunk, and while it's refreshing for Jim to come in without a work-related injury, drunken Jim makes for an even worse patient than usual.

"Bachelor party," Hikaru says by way of explanation.

"How did he hurt his ankle?" Len asks. "Please tell me he wasn't trying to outdo the stripper."

Hikaru laughs, then sighs heavily. "Nothing that exciting. He misjudged getting out of the cab when it got to his place, so I had to drag him back in and bring him down here."

"Do you get a Jim Kirk bonus on your paycheck?" He pulls back the curtain and looks inside, where Pavel is doing his best to treat an uncooperative Jim.

"I wanted a hat," he says to Pavel, who is doing a remarkable job of not laughing in Jim's face. "All the normal cops get a hat, you know? So I thought I'd get one. But not just any hat." He stretches one arm out towards Pavel, apparently trying to snag the front of his scrubs and pull the kid closer.

"No?" Pavel replies politely, dodging his hand. Christine's taught him well. "Detective Kirk, please, how much have you had to drink tonight?"

"This is a _man's hat_. What? I don't know."

"I don't think he has alcohol poisoning, Nurse Chekov. Give him a saline drip and some crutches, then strap up his ankle and send him on his way," Len orders.

"Yes, Doctor."

He lets the curtain drop again and turns back to Hikaru, who is shaking his head. "What?" Len says, looking at him curiously.

"You want him?" Hikaru asks.

"Excuse me?"

"If you want to date Jim," he says, and it's the first time Len's ever heard him call Jim by his first name, "you are more than welcome to keep him _forever_. Because I need someone else to put up with this shit so I can catch a break."

Len forces a laugh, but he's not entirely sure Hikaru is joking. "I don't... I don't want to date Jim," he says.

"Half of my job is reading people, and I don't think I've read you two wrong. He's a good guy, Len, and so are you," Hikaru says. "You'd be good together. He calms down when he's around you."

"I think he's just afraid Nurse Chapel's going to slap him again," he says. Then he adds, "Which is probably fair enough."

"She is kind of scary," Hikaru agrees. "Are we not going to talk about Jim?"

Len really wants to talk about Jim, but there's a sudden commotion and a loud crash from behind the curtain. By the time Len's hauled Jim back onto the gurney and away from Pavel, who is looking completely outraged—not to mention covered in vomit—the moment has passed.

***

The call comes in as Len's finishing up his shift: a police detective with three bullets in his chest. Len remembers the time they almost kissed and feels sick, because he can't have lost his chance this way. Sure, Jim gets hurt, but he always bounces back.

When the gurney comes through, Len's heart is in his mouth. He's got too many other patients right now to be given this one, but he manages to get a glimpse of the man as he's hurried into an exam room, looking horribly still. He has dark brown hair; it's not Jim, and the relief that rushes over Len is so strong that his knees almost buckle.

He wonders, somewhat numbly, if this man worked with Jim. Maybe they were friends. It's not like this is the first time he's seen a cop bleeding out in the ER, but somehow it hits closer to home today.

When Len finishes examining a middle-aged woman with possible appendicitis, he goes across to sort out the paperwork to get her transferred to a ward upstairs for surgery, and Jim is standing by the nurses' station.

"Hey," he says when he sees Len. He's wearing a thick coat and his hair is wet from the rain outside, colouring it a darker blond than usual.

"Hey," Len replies. "Are you here about...?"

"Yeah." He nods, then looks down. "His name was Liam Edwards."

"I'm sorry, Jim. Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I've got a break due any minute, so we can go to the on-call room if you like. Get a coffee."

"You never take me anywhere nice," Jim quips, but then he nods. "That sounds good."

They don't really talk as they walk quickly through the department to the on-call room. It's empty when they arrive and likely to stay that way for a while, considering the time of day. Len is grateful for that, because he's barely shut the door behind them before Jim presses him against it, his tongue darting along the seam of Len's lips until they part for him.

Len's hands come up to fist in Jim's hair as their tongues slide together slowly, the kiss deepening rapidly. Jim's mouth is so hot on his that Len almost wants to pull away, but Jim is making the sexiest noises in the back of his throat, his breath coming in faint gusts. Their teeth click slightly as one of them misjudges an angle, and they both laugh before kissing again more carefully, but with no less neediness.

"Oh, fuck, _Len_." Jim moans faintly, arching to press their hips together. He's pulling at the front of Len's shirt, fighting with the buttons and when he finally gets a couple open, he slides his hand through the gap to pinch and roll Len's nipple between his fingertips.

" _Nngh_ ," says Len coherently. He bucks as well, grinding forwards against Jim shamelessly. It's been too long since he's been with someone like this; too long since he needed someone more than anything else in the world, and it's intoxicating.

There's lubricant in the pocket of his white coat, Len knows. But what he doesn't have is a condom and Jim's cock is rubbing insistently against his own through their pants. Jim murmurs nonsense into his ear, rocking his hips faster, and Len tugs at Jim's hair to get his attention.

"Fuck, slow down," he mutters, hoping no one's outside the room.

Jim makes a noise of disappointment, leaning back to look up at Len. His mouth is wet and slightly swollen from their frantic kissing and Len would love to push Jim down to his knees and thrust his dick between those lips, fucking Jim's mouth until he comes. Then he'd pull Jim back up and return the favour, if only they had the time.

Instead, he pushes his hands between their bodies and fumbles with the front of his trousers. Jim gets the idea quickly enough, working on his own until they both have their pants and underwear shoved down just far enough to expose their cocks. Jim's cock is thick and long and lovely, and Len thinks once again how much he'd like to suck it. His own erection twitches at the thought.

Before he can do anything about it, Jim has his hand wrapped around both of their cocks, squeezing them together in a way that makes Len's eyes roll back in his head. He thrusts into the tight grip of Jim's fingers, wrapping his arm around the other man's shoulders to pull him even closer. His fingernails snag on the rough fabric of Jim's overcoat. With his other hand, he manages to get some lube onto his fingers—but it's messy, spilling into his pocket—and reaches back to slide his fingers between Jim's ass cheeks and over his hole.

Jim curses and tries to thrust in two directions at once, rocking his hips faster as Len rubs with his fingertip, crooking it just enough to barely press inside Jim.

"Oh god, oh god," he gasps. He crushes their mouths together again, muffling a low moan that Len can feel reverberating through his chest as Jim comes hard between them. Len manages to look up at Jim's face, contorted in a way that's almost beautiful, and he gasps as his cock slides easily through the extra lubrication. It's enough to bring him off, too, coming in heavy spurts across Jim's stomach.

They cling to each other, breathing heavily. Len presses his face into Jim's hair, then brushes his lips against his temple before Jim tilts his face up, making a wanting noise. They kiss again, slower now their need is less urgent—but still there. Len still wants more from Jim.

"I changed my mind," Jim says into his mouth. "You _did_ take me somewhere nice."


End file.
